Proper documentation of medical imaging findings, including anatomical location, joint position, arthritis location with severity, fracture patterns, bone changes, changes from joint arthroplasty, and ICD-9 coding, are a vital aspect of a physician's imaging report. Radiographic data is recorded as an x-ray report for insurance reimbursement and for the patient's medical record. The important outcome data likely ends up in the clinical “black hole” of an individual patient's chart.
Electronic medical records (EMRs) are now finding their way into private practice but these systems offer little in the form of software suites for documenting imaging findings and for generating standard and therefore searchable imaging documentation. While radiological software is available for certain templated studies, there is little in the way of imaging electronic documentation other than templated “pick-lists” for common findings. The currently available systems suffer from one or more of the following shortcomings:                templates and “pick-lists” range from too simple to complex, creating confusion among the users;        minimal use of standard nomenclature;        hardware, software and support is expensive;        physicians lack time to customize the system;        physicians lack time to learn a new program, especially a complex one;        screens are too “busy” and too many windows open at any given time;        minimal use of published clinical guidelines.        
In accordance with common practice, the various described features are not drawn to scale, but are drawn to emphasize specific features relevant to the invention. Like reference characters denote like elements throughout the figures and text.